This post has been brewing in my head for weeks at this point and I will, at times, paint things in broad strokes. I know there are exceptions to all the rules, but I'm giving my view from the shoulder.
If you read surf magazines in the late 1980s, you may remember an advertisement from Gotcha that covered two pages. Not two sequential pages, but two odd-numbered pages. You got the setup on, say, page 33 and the punch on page 35. It was really kind of genius! The reader is literally forced to unveil the second half of the ad.
The first page (the setup, if you will) often showed a rather dweebish character in black and white with the text below (all caps, solid black) "If you don't surf, don't start."
The punch, the second half of the ad, was a full color action shot of someone tucked up in the barrel or bashing the lip of a wave with, again, all caps solid black text below stating "If you surf, never stop."
That's a powerful ad! Bold, direct, maybe a little divisive.
See, surfers and surf culture are very dichotomous. Is that a word? Eh, let's run with it for now. We preach about environmentalism, but the three main things used for surfing are all petroleum-based (board, wax, wetsuit). Yes, there's been some movement toward improving that, but it's not taken over at the core. Folks will drop good money on an international surf trip without a thought about jet emissions or perhaps even how they care for the place they're going.
Surfers want to share the joy of their sport/hobby (you decide), but also want an uncrowded lineup. There's that attitude of tribalism and localism, but also "Hey this activity is great! You should really try it."
Where is the middle? Is there a middle? I have no idea and I may not even have suggestions for solutions here.
A few weeks ago I was listening to one of the podcasts on the Surf Splendor network (great shows, seriously!) and I think it was The Grit (could be wrong, but that's what my memory says) and the hosts David and Chas were lamenting the lineup. Typical comments of discouragement toward people coming out to surf as beginners, longboarders, soft-toppers, etc.
By the way, I am still very much a beginner. And they weren't being wholly belligerent or anything. Listen to enough of their podcasts (or any surf podcast, really) and there's always the message of respecting the spot, the locals, and the lineup wherever you go. That's a forever truth.
But if someone new to surfing listened to that episode first, I mean, I don't see how they couldn't be discouraged. It was kind of a turnoff.
It's that same message from that 80s Gotcha ad. "We are an elite group. If you're not already in the scene, you don't get to be part of the scene." And that's really a wild message for a clothing/equipment company to be sending. Wouldn't that idea potentially hurt business? Or is that actually reverse psychology. Secretly, it's saying...buy our stuff, look like you've been surfing your whole life, don't look like that dweeb on the previous page!
I don't know. Honestly. Wherever you surf, however long you've been doing it, however frequently you're able to get out, you're going to find different situations everywhere.
I've been lucky that the two lessons I've been out for, even though I have struggled with things, I have had two very positive experiences: 1) My very first lesson, this like 12 year old grom literally hooted me into a wave. Me! 48 years old, heavy, slow, probably older than his dad...and he's hooting me into a wave. Fuck...the kids are alright. 2) My most recent lesson at a slight more crowded/popular spot in Santa Cruz, I had just come in from another attempt and another wipeout when two clearly more local guys were headed out (probably in their mid to late 20s) and one asked me how it was going. I was honest, but upbeat. And the dude literally encouraged me to keep at it. "You'll get it," he said and fist bumped me.
Some people say surfers are the worst. Yeah, maybe at times. Maybe someone has carried the crappy day they've had out into the water with them, but I've yet to cross paths with them.
And this post has definitely rambled. Again, we're a culture that wants to separate, segment, label, and identify things. We often say one thing and do another. None of us are perfect. So maybe we just go out and set an intention at the start of session to leave our drama packed up in the car, to watch out for each other in the lineup, and to respect the ocean and our place in it.
Maybe that's how we overcome that sort of Dora-esque selfishness. Maybe I'm just rambling.